My name is Scott Bruntjen.  I am married to Carol Rinderknecht.  We live in Eldora, Colorado at the Goldminer Hotel.  For a while we did have a dog companion, Scrappy, who adopted us.  Now there are only dogs and guests who visit periodically.  When we moved to Eldora we joined a few other full time residents; today there are probably more than 100. Summers, the population swells to 1,000.  Eldora is one of the few places that the view out almost any window has not changed in the last 25 years; in fact it looks about the same as it did when I rode through here on horseback in the 1950s except the main road is paved now and there is a new bridge. Oh, and the Log Cabin Grocery with a soda fountain is long closed.

Peter Brady, a fellow member of the County Historic Preservation Advisory Board, once commented to me after a Board meeting that people don’t own historic buildings; they are only their caretakers.  He’s right. That is the philosophy that we have adopted for what is becoming our life’s work. 

Over forty years ago I graduated from the University of Iowa with a degree in history.  I did not know what I would do with that credential but a liberal arts education is a good preparation for just about anything.  I spent years in a college library and later with two different computer companies. But I always wanted to return to western Boulder County where I spent summers at camp.  In 1986, we moved here on Columbus Day weekend in a snowstorm. I spent a decade in the hospitality business and served in local government.  For six years I was a member and Chairman of the County Historic Preservation Board. All of this was preparation for what came next.

We have owned the Goldminer (officially in the National Register of Historic Places, it is the Gold Miner Hotel) longer than any other owner since it was built in the Winter of 1897-1898.  It did sell during hard times in the early 1900s for less than $100 and as recently as the 1950s it changed hands for $5,000.  We paid considerably more in 1986 but if there is a market for it now I am sure that our investment will have done well.  But we don’t want to sell; now we are into a complete preservation effort.  And the resident Ghost would probably appreciate this.

That is what this site is about.